Software engineer here and my wife is a RN that works part time so we don’t have have childcare expenses. I do have 5 kids so my toy buying isn’t what it used to be. Afmr was my first pin in about 5 years. Hoping to get a few more but not sure the better half will be on board.

Also make sure all other expenses are taken care of first. Be patient and only buy things when I have the cash.

I work for Billie Jean King with Bug Busters.

Single income, process operator at a refinery, but i bought projects, fixed, sold, repeated and sold off all of my games almost to buy 5 or 6 great games

same, bought a fixer upper. just had to replace my car. could have easily afforded a more expensive house or car but i will not afford them. having said that pin prices are at the point that i wont afford them any more as well. i will just buy newer games and remakes for 2k more over a 30+ year old trashed game.

people need to remember that being able to afford something doesn't mean you have to. after i explained that to my wife she suddenly understood. for instance she wants a new bathroom (ours is currently pink) but it works fine. there is no reason to afford a remodel on the bathroom at this time. in the future sure but id rather be even more financially stable before doing it.

Love the Seebug R in you picture. It’s a classic 50s juke with fantastic sound..

Software developer, but most of my ability to afford the hobby has been making smart purchases. Never buying new. Doing trades for games I didn't want, but the trade was in my favor. I have the number of pins I want to be at now, but I keep kicking around the notion of trading 3 out to get a Big Lebowski. That would leave me looking at an 8-10k hole to fill (2 machines) which would take me a good long while to manage.

Worked my way through college (2 jobs) with no debt upon graduation. Have been selling wholesale parts for a domestic manufacturer for 30 years since then.
I have 0 credit card debt (I pay it off every month). I have always lived within my means (got 21 years out of my first new vehicle ever -97 Explorer before she bit the dust last year).
Not married but I have a 16 yo daughter (way more expensive than pinball)!
I started collecting a few years ago. I slide a few hundred a month from my monthly commission check into my slush fund in case a wish list game comes up...

#1 no kids
#2 wife works a great full time job
#3 there is no number 3

Just have no kids and 2 incomes...
Then you tend to have some funny money to blow on silly toys.

since you have 1 income and 2 kids, then I suggest a side hustle to find some spare change.

in more practical terms, we live well below our means in all aspects of our normal life.
We still live in our starter home, we buy reliable used vehicles with cash and take care of them, we sacrificed for years and lived in shitty apartments with multiple roommates till we bought out first house. You would be amazed how small sacrifices 10 years ago have put us in a much better position now to have fun.

I cut lawns, shovel snow and babysit. I also inherited a shitload of cash, that worked the best.

Air Traffic Control and no debt besides the house which is halfway to paid off. Stay at home wife with two kids that luckily like pinball too.

I sell weed legally.

You going to be at the NW Show?

LOL

Hustle hard

High school teacher, work a second job at bar on Friday and Saturday nights, also coach wrestling, and then I've worked every summer the 10 years I've been teaching either running a house painting business or more time at the bar. Summer vacation I have always still done 40 hours a week. I also operate my pinball machines on the side, doesn't make much money but helps fund the hobby and gives me some space. I also started collecting almost 7 years ago now and got some stuff cheap early and made some money selling it.

Also no kids at all is a huge help. I also live in an incredibly cheap and small home, and don't drink so I tend to save a lot of money when I go out compared to what other people spend, and I also eat at the bar a few nights per week typically free or cheap depending on what orders get messed up over the course of the night.

I'm a Software Engineer for a private equity firm

I'm guessing selling drugs is not the answer I should provide

I'm fortunate to have a decent job and a wife that works as well. We don't live house poor like most people we know which allows enough money for our two hobbies (cars and pinball). It also helps that we don't drink and prefer to stay at home vs going out. My kids are young but as they get older they get more and more expensive so that fun money accounts getting smaller each year.

Software Engineer, 2 income family, 2 young kids, big $ on daycare, big house in Eastern Mass (>>$). Just squeeze as much as possible on what's left. Interesting how little you can live on, when you have to.

Steal anything that's not taped, glued or stapled down.

Also I bought most of my games pretty reasonably back in the day and now I do a lot of selling and trading to keep pinball paying for pinball.

Solid income job I've been at 30 yrs, wife does well as Orthodontic assistant. We are both responsible with the $, making sure bills are paid first. Original start for pinball was getting out of NHL jersey collecting. Amassed approx. 1500 jerseys over a 20 yr span. When you sell defunct styles/teams with autographs from the retired or no longer with us, it can raise a lot of capital. Swapped one hobby for another, but pinball you can do something besides just look at them.

My wife is a tech nerd who does well, I own some websites which do well, we don't have kids, we are Canadian so we never had any medical or student debt at all, and we live a slightly different lifestyle than most where we're both 100% independent so we do and spend what we want without asking the other. Not that this helps you at all though because your circumstance is totally different but I'd say this much. I met a young couple in their 20's playing pinball at a location who were in the more typical American circumstance of student debt, medical bills, etc and what they were doing is each putting aside an approved amount every week into a pinball fund to eventually buy their first machine. It's not a lot of money and it will take time, but they were determined to get there!

So generally speaking for those in a circumstance where money is tight and/or your spouse has to approve purchases then my suggestion would be to create a pinball fund that you tell your spouse about and you contribute an approved amount to it every week. It will take time but at least that way once you have enough saved up then you can buy your machine without grief. After that I would stick to trading games. Play the hell out of that game, enjoy it, then take time to find the right trade deal to get another game. That way with little to no money involved you won't get any spousal grief since it's a game for game swap, and no extra space gets taken. It's that 1st game that is the tricky one to get this way but once you got it then you are on your way! For repairs and game tweaks just hit Pinside and Youtube for help, I knew nothing about fixing pins when I got my first one but I learned everything I needed from those two resources, they are both goldmines of info.

If you want more. that TWD can be turned into a Pro and a couple of other classic games. I found that when I was starting out, quantity of games were more fun for me. Of course, they had to play well. Nobody wants a dog of a game in their game room. But I quickly found out I love the old Bally games, and they can be brutal players set up correctly. To me, that is more fun than a few extra bells and whistles on a game.

The other thing that can help is good friends that also have games. Right now I have a TWD Premium that is owned by a friend, and he has a game of mine. Temporary swaps can really work well if you know and trust the person.

Holy cow, is everyone in software?

There are few industries which pay enough to be able to afford these damn things. Few of the (many) attorneys on the site have posted to this thread

I live in my parent's basement and have a part time job--sometimes, anyway. I am 55. I shoulda been a software engineer...

Ditto. Doesn't suck.

No wife or kids. House is paid off. No CC bills. I do QA in Mfg.

Bought most of the keeper games years ago when prices were dirt cheap. Over the years I've owned 644 pins and kept 75 ish. Everything is paid for, no credit cards, no car or house payments, not even a cell phone and proud of it. Cash is king!!

John

Some of us got lucky as we were in early and got games before the insanity. I never thought though I would be spending 8.5k on a POTC SE. My wife loves pinball and won't let me sell any game.

If you're handy there's always some construction company looking for part time help....great way to fund a game.

Also, be SAFE OUT THERE....Too many crazy people!

Work = Money. The end

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First one for me was a gift from my dad. However, the repairs have been pricey and I am thankful that I work in Software and can afford my hobbies as long as I am not going and buying brand new machines or a bunch of parts at once.

I have been collecting games for many years. I have owned over 200 pins. What I have done is to buy/sell/trade to fund my hobby. Basically I started out with two games, fix them up and sold them. Take that money and buy additional games. This has snow-balled into a complete paid collection that I have not added any addition funds into for at least the last 15 years.

I am as well. Pretty good profession to get into. Pretty much everyone needs software people whether you are a digital company or not. I sit near a new hire in my company. He is answering calls all day, day after day from headhunters and has to tell them he already got a job.

come on! are we really calling ourselves "software engineers".

We write code. We are code monkeys. We are glorified plumbers.

Nobody is engineering shit!

I've only been collecting pins for a few years now, though I've been collecting arcade machines since I was 15 or 16. Back then I just got a job while in high school, and worked full time through college. Nowadays I work in Information Security and make enough to be able to buy games from time to time. Though it'll be a lot easier when my fiancee gets her PHD and we have two incomes

I'm the most original pinsider one can find, I'm in ...... software

Buy two, sell one. Buy four, sell two etc. Buy a warehouse full, (harder to do today, but they are still out there) for a hundred each or so, fix them up and sell a bunch. Rarely paid more than 200 bucks for a game. Always cash. Collection paid for itself.

Buy thrashed, dirt cheap projects and restore them slowly in my spare evenings. Then I've either got a really nice machine to play or something valuable to swap for something else nice.

What do I do to afford them.....I mostly misrepresent the price i actually paid for the pin when telling the wife!

The distributors are the ones that can afford anything they want and then some.

Nuff said

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Whoa, whoa, whoa!! If you are the sole provider...maybe your wife should ease up on your toys or consider getting a job herself. While I realize that raising kids takes time and energy...I am sure you help with that as well.
There are billions of women in the world that raise kids and still make money. BILLIONS.

As far as paying for pins, you sound like you are doing quite well. 2 top tier pins, a super chexx, and slot machines? Im not sure what the complaint is.

If your goal is to truly get more pins, then there are truly only a few options:
1) Get your wife to contribute to the household income
2) Find a way to earn more, either through extra hours or a side job.
3) Buy prohects and fix up pins yourself.
4) Trade up and/or flip pins.

Lots of software guys in here, i guess im a hardware kinda guy, I construct and repair elevators/escalators.

This. I too was a code monkey (get up, get coffee, go to job, have boring meeting).

I'm an airplane mechanic and I moonlight as power forward for the Lakers.

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Engineering. Stern is doing it. So is JJP. So was Heighway and American Pinball is as well. Using CAD software, in these cases our CAD software. Coding in itself, yeah, could be called something else I guess, but if you're a decision maker as well, that's engineering. Project decisions, specification writing, coding decisions, helping customers develop products with your software. Yeah it's engineering. The main reason I got into pinball, was that Stern was a customer of ours and brought pins to our yearly customer conference. ICE (Super Chexx) too. A pin is a great blend of software, electrical and mechanical design and the arts as well. Hoping that my kids get the connection and pursue the vocation as well.

I started to save for a bigger boat last year by opening a savings account that automatically puts in x amount in from my checking account each month. Seams to be working well for me.

1 - I'm sure this is a huge shock - but Program Manager in Software development.

2 - Learn to fix machines (and do it well... Hacky techs are the worst). That allows me to collect older machines that are cheaper on average and will always be in the black when I sell them. Also - I have a FB page (Skill Shot Repair), business cards, and word of mouth to do repairs for folks on the side. ($60/hr, and that's on the lower end).

3 - One thing I do I haven't seen anyone post yet - I keep all my games on quarter play and charge myself. (.25 EM, .50 SS, .75 DMD). Anything in the coin box goes directly to my savings account labeled 'pinball fund' for parts or new buys when they come up.